We thoroughly enjoy having guests out for BBQs and fun in the bush. Today was no exception (sorry- only the cake made it into a picture!) It was FANTASTIC — thanks Linda! Also, Here the ute got a new shade sail to escape the heat — thanks Jeff! The farm animals carried on (as usual) with the chooks now laying a dozen eggs (why they enter their brood boxes with head to the rear wall — I’ll never know!) Nick, the bestest goat herder, and his little dog made sure the goats were well looked after. The grass is stellar as we’ve had regular rain — its been a great Summer!

We’re excited to have our dear Sydney friends Luci, Belinda, and little Avi come up to see us. They were the first guests to stay in our new Glass House cabin which was finished just in time! Avi was all around the place (yet still to walk) and approved of the cabin and especially the new path.

Lot’s of good food, wine, and merriment over several days before they continued on with their road trip adventure. Nick and Luci even worked on Aura (at least half a day) together.

Not a bad transformation of the old goatel…While the build spanned over a month — the rain and wet added at least 10 days along the way. A few final touches (ie: balustrades, solar hot water) still remain, yet with guests arriving this week, it was time to prepare it for use. Nick pimped the place out and made it quite comfortable for our guests. Speaking of such — come see us!

Nick’s name day started with a foggy bottom from our FAV — very nice this time of year! I helped him celebrate with a happy face muesli “cake” — which Nick enjoyed with a smile! Speaking of such — if chickens had lips — they’d be smiling too. They LOVE the hemp seed feed I feed them and the eggs have been thick shelled, strong yellow yolked, and tasty each day. YUM YUM Hemp meal has twice the protein of regular hen scratch feed, is nutrient rich, and costs the same as average feed.

While we’ve gotten to know the area nearest the gate with the FAV, the forest with our cabins, and flats in between — there still remain areas that we’ve not discovered… While Nick was away in Sydney, Jaffa and I went exploring along our Black Mountain boundary. Its nearly rainforest-esque since we’ve had SO much rain lately. This fallen tree has a stump coated in lichen and moss and fell downhill decades ago — its 100 feet in length and would take 2-3 people to encircle it with arms stretched — what a beautiful massive old gum tree!

The soft woods like Wattles are great hosts for Stags Leaf and other “pests” which I find lovely. These are a few of several on the same large tree.

Though Jaffa took off back home — I continued my hike and after several hours trekking up and down embankments, and over much Lantanna — came across a whole new canyon. This is just below our chicken coop and where several of our water falls cascade into after large storms. The photo hardly does it justice… from our corps it falls around 100 metres (300 feet) down to the canyon floor where a storm creek flows, before rising back 130 metres (400 feet) up towards Black Mountain and our boundary on the South East. Its a spectacular place — Nick spent a week occasionally working with whipper snipper and pick axe trying to build a trail down to it. I encouraged him to pause until we have more time and it cools down — but this area remains on our list of projects to uncover so guests may experience it too.